How to kill Soviet fighters?

[Olmsted]

I just replayed Kursk NM1 and I had forgotten how impossible it is to kill Soviet fighter planes. Even with 6-8 German fighters against 2 Soviet fighters, I only succeeded in shooting down 1 Soviet fighter in the entire first mission. I must have watched 20 separate dogfights - in every single one of them my fighters outnumbered his - but only shot down 1 Soviet fighter. Despite my constant escorting of my Stukas, he still managed to shoot down 3 of them. Has something been done to nerf the Bf-109F? It isn't nearly as fast or as well-armored as the Soviet fighters - but I don't know what model they are using. Are they La-5's? or Yak-7's?

Still, this is my first time replaying NM1 and I am loving it...

Is the loss of 3 Stukas going to hamper me later on in the game? I don't believe in saving/reloading, but is that heavy losses in aircraft for NM1?

I somehow made it through NM1 without losing any core units, but only through some sort of divine intervention.

Edit - Now I am into NM2 and finding that, as in vanilla BK, the Pe-2 (used as a Recon plane in Kursk NM2) is still impossible to shoot down. In fact, twice now it has shot down my fighters. It wrecks my Bf-109G's. Were German planes and pilots really this bad against the Russians?

[tedo]

They weren't that bad against russians. But in this time period russians have had a lot of la-5 fn. This plane was in my opinion superior to the bf 109's. But with fw-190 they were even. Also russians outnumbered german planes.

[Adrian Taylor]

Hi Charles,

You don't have any other mod files installed do you? Okay the 109's do at times have problems with the La 5's, but they should be able to cope with the Pe 2's.


Adrian

[Olmsted]

No other mod files installed - I have Kursk installed to my Rolling Thunder directory. I use my own mod with BK1, and use RT for Kursk. There shouldn't be any conflict with them in separate directories, right?

I did finally manage to shoot down the Pe-2 bombers on NM-2, but I think the Recon planes are still out there somewhere. That Pe-2 bomber might just be the most vicious plane I have ever seen - it is very fast and its bomb string is dead on.

By the way, the FW-190G (ground attack), while it is an awesome plane with its guns, never hits anything with its bomb. Is there any way to adjust the trajectory?

[Adrian Taylor]

olmsted said:

By the way, the FW-190G (ground attack), while it is an awesome plane with its guns, never hits anything with its bomb. Is there any way to adjust the trajectory?

Not without making it less accurate with its guns

Adrian

[Olmsted]

That's a pity - but its guns are so good that I wouldn't want to nerf them at all.

I used FW-190G's to obliterate pretty much every heavy weapons position in Kashara and elsewhere. Send in the FW-190G's to kill the crews and destroy some of the equipment, then shell the positions with artillery until it is all a blackened mess. That way you don't have to worry about the Soviets resupplying the guns with new crews.

The Soviets obliged me by only sending one flight of fighters through this point in NM2. They looked like some sort of Yaks - I like the variety of aircraft a lot. That flight shot down 2 more Stukas, bringing my losses to 5 for the campaign as a whole (after only NM1 and NM2). I assume aircraft losses are tracked (I never paid attention the first time I played through Kursk), so this may hamper me a bit.

[Adrian Taylor]

Each mission has a certain amount of planes. Generally there are more early on and less during the later battles.


Adrian